Disclosures, by August Kleinzahler

You’re figuring it out, one

bit after another,

as each veil

drops to earth like a leaf.

This is the lupine shoot,

this the weed,

this the love witheld,

and here,

half a life after,

where the trigger’s

released.

The pattern discloses itself,

the dance,

insect-simple:

appetite, decay,

growl and suck.

From “Red Sauce, Whiskey and Snow” by August Kleinzahler. (Farrar Straus and Giroux: $19; 93 pp.) 1995 Reprinted by permission.